Zach Yuen made his first mark on the history books earlier this season when he became the first Chinese player to get a point in KHL hockey. Today he followed up by becoming the first Chinese goalscorer in the competition.

The big moment came in the eighth minute of Kunlun’s game against Amur. Zuen intercepted an attempted clearance, passed the puck out to Tomas Marcinko on the right, and skated to the net in time to get the finishing touch on his team-mate’s shot from out wide. It was another big moment in the brief history of KHL action in China.

Fittingly, Yuen’s goal was also enough to give his team victory. Neither team really lit up the game with dazzling offense, sharing just 33 shots on goal between them. Artyom Zagidulin faced 16 of them, stopping each one for his first KHL shut-out.

Unstoppable SKA crushes Medvescak

SKA St. Petersburg 6 Medvescak Zagreb 0

It’s now 11 games without defeat for the KHL’s leader as SKA maintained its blistering form with another big victory.

And the winning margins for Oleg Znarok’s team remain impressive: this was the sixth time in those 11 games that six hit an opponent for six.

Medvescak had been the last team to beat the Army Men, edging an overtime win on October 2, but the Croatians had no answers in St. Petersburg as Pavel Datsyuk scored twice. That ended an uncharacteristically quiet spell for the veteran star, whose previous goal came in a 5-1 romp over Neftekhimik on September 4.

Ilya Kovalchuk also found the target to claim his 16th of the campaign, while there were further goals for Evgeny Ketov, Nikolai Prokhorkin and Alexander Barabanov.

CSKA keeps up the chase

CSKA Moscow 4 Slovan Bratislava 2

CSKA remained hard on SKA’s heels after winning a sometimes-tempestuous game against Slovan.

The Muscovites had to come from behind in a lively encounter that bubbled over into a full-scale brawl in the 55th minute as Nikita Pivtsakin and Kyle Chipchura got into a fight.

Long before that, Jonathan Cheechoo gave Slovan a 17th-minute lead but Alexander Popov quickly cancelled out that effort. Then, in the middle stanza, CSKA got in front on the power play thanks to Alexander Kutuzov’s goal.

The third period was incident-packed, with three goals and 50 minutes of penalties. CSKA finished with more of both, scoring through Maxim Mamin and – belatedly – Jonas Enlund’s empty-netter either side of Vaclav Nederost’s strike for Slovan.

Tkachyov’s treble sinks Ugra

Ak Bars Kazan 4 Ugra Khanty-Mansiysk 1

A hat-trick from Vladimir Tkachyov helped Ak Bars to return to the top of the Eastern Conference after a comfortable home victory.

The game was settled inside 14 minutes as the home team wasted little time in despatching an out-of-form visitor. Tkachyov scored in the seventh and 13th, and 30 seconds later Mikhail Glukhov made it 3-0. The second period saw Tkachyov complete his hat-trick before Denis Khlystov finally got Ugra on the scoresheet in the third.

Ugra slipped to its fifth successive loss and now finds itself in 11th place, four points adrift of the Eastern playoff places.

Around the league

Lokomotiv’s foreign legion provided the clutch goals in a high-scoring game with Dinamo Minsk. The teams were locked at 2-2 after 40 minutes but Brandon Kozun and Max Talbot both found Ben Scrivens’ net in the space of two minutes early in the third. Denis Mosalyov quickly added a fifth, chasing Scrivens to the bench, and only the video official denied Loko a sixth soon after. Instead Alexander Materukhin’s second of the night for Dinamo made it 5-3 before Mosalyov got a second goal of his own as it finished 6-3.

Avtomobilist’s mini-revival hit the skids at Lada as the home team came from behind to inflict a first defeat in four. Petr Koukal gave Avto the lead in the first period but Denis Zernov tied it up. Then Alexander Bumagin got a power play winner in the 26th minute.

A strong start and virtuoso goaltending saw Barys win 3-0 at Neftekhimik. Evgeny Rymarov and Nigel Dawes gave the Kazakhs a 2-0 lead in the first period and Martin St. Pierre added a third in the 21st minute. After that it was the Henrik Karlsson show as the Finn turned away 42 shots in total to preserve his team’s lead.

KHL.ru is the official Web site of the Kontinental Hockey League. All KHL logos and marks as well as all other proprietary materials depicted herein are the property of the KHL and may not be reproduced without the prior written consent of KHL, ltd

KHL.ru is the official Web site of the Kontinental Hockey League. All KHL logos and marks as well as all other proprietary materials depicted herein are the property of the KHL and may not be reproduced without the prior written consent of KHL, ltd